He did not elaborate, as we came upon a crossbow bolt about then, stuck in the bole of a tree.
«What about Vicar Roberts?» I said.
«Ambitious man. I wouldn't be surprised if his aim is to be the only one left standing at the end, sole beneficiary of the opening.»
«What about Lynette? This doesn't require a human sacrifice, you know. It just sort of greases the wheels.»
«I've been thinking about her,» he said. «Perhaps, on the way back, we could go by the vicarage and you could show me which room is hers.»
«I don't know that myself. But I'll get Graymalk to show me. Then I'll show you.»
«Do that.»
We walked on, coming at last to the slopes of the small hill I had determined to be the center.
«So this is the place?» he remarked.
«More or less. Give or take a little, every which way. I don't usually work with maps the way most do.»
We wandered a bit then.
«Just your average hillside,» he finally said. «Nothing special about it, unless those trees are the remains of a sacred grove.»
«But they're saplings. They look like new growth to me.»
«Yes. Me, too. I've a funny feeling you're still missing something in the equation. I'm in this version?»
«Yes.»
«We've discussed this before. If you take me out of it, where does that move it to?»
«The other side of the hill and farther south and east. Roughly the same distance as from your place to a point across the road from Owen's.»
«Let's take a look.»
We climbed the hill and climbed back down the other side. Then we walked southeastward.
Finally, we came to a marshy area, where I halted.
«Over that way,» I said. «Maybe fifty or sixty paces. I don't see any point in mucking around in it when we can see it from here. It all looks the same.»
«Yes. Unpromising.» He scanned the area for a time. «Either way, then,» he finally said, «you must still be leaving something out.»
«A mystery player?» I asked. «Someone who's been lying low all this time?»
«It seems as if there must be. Hasn't it ever happened before?»
I thought hard, recalling Games gone by.
«It's been tried,» I said then. «But the others always found him out.»
«Why?»
«Things like this,» I said. «Pieces that don't fit any other way.»
«Well?»
«This is fairly late in the game. It's never gone this long. Everyone's always known everyone else by this time, with only about a week to go.»
«In those situations where someone was hiding out, how did you go about discovering him?»
«We usually all know by the Death of the Moon. If something seems wrong afterward that can only be accounted for by the presence of another player, the power is then present to do a divinatory operation to determine the person's identity or location.»
«Don't you think it might be worth giving it a try?»
«Yes. You're right. Of course, it's not really my specialty. Even though I know something about all of the operations, I'm a watcher and I'm a calculator. I'll get someone else to give it a try, though.»
«Who?»
«I don't know yet. I'll have to find out who's good at it, and then suggest it formally, so that I get to share the results. I'll share them with you then, of course.»
«What if it's someone you can't stand?»
«Doesn't matter. There are rules, even if you're trying to kill each other. If you don't follow them, you don't last long. I may have something that that person will want, like the ability to do an odd calculation, say, for something other than the center.»
«Such as?»
«Oh, the place where a body will be found. The place where a certain herb can be located. The store that carries a particular ingredient.»
«Really? I never knew about those secondary calculations. How hard are they to perform?»
«Some are very hard. Some are easy.»
We turned and began walking back.
«How hard's the body-finding one?» he asked as we climbed the hill.
«They're fairly easy, actually.»
«What if you tried it for the police officer we put in the river?»
«Now that could be tricky, since there are a lot of extra variables involved. If you just misplaced a body, though, or knew that someone had died but didn't know where, that wouldn't be too hard.»
«That does sound like a kind of divination,» he said.
«When you talk about being an 'anticipator,' of having a pretty good idea of when something's going to happen, or how, or who will be there, isn't that a kind of divination?»
«No. I think it's more a kind of subconscious knack for dealing with statistics, against a fairly well-known field of actions.»
«Well, some of my calculations would probably be a lot closer to doing overtly what you seem to do subconsciously. You may well be an intuitive calculator.»
«That business about finding the body, though. That smacks of divination.»
«It only seems that way to an outsider. Besides, you've just seen what can happen to my calculations if I'm missing some key factor. That's hardly divinatory.»
«Supposing I told you that I've had a strong feeling all morning that one of the players has died?»
«That's a little beyond me, I'm afraid. I'd need to know who it was, and some of the circumstances. I really deal more with facts and probabilities than things like that. Are you serious about your feeling?»
«Yes, it's a real anticipation.»
«Did you feel it when the Count got staked?»
«No, I didn't. But then, I don't believe he'd technically have been considered living, to begin with.»
«Quibble, quibble,» I said, and he caught the smile and smiled back. It takes one to know one, I guess.
«You want to show me Dog's Nest? You've gotten me curious.»
«Come on,» I said, and we went and climbed up to it.
At the top, we walked around a bit, and I showed him the stone we had been sucked through. Its inscription had become barely noticeable scratchings again. He couldn't make them out either.
«Nice view from here, though,» he said, turning and studying the land about us. «Oh, there's the manse. I wonder whether Mrs. Enderby's cuttings are taking?»
There was my opening. I could have seized it right then, I suppose, and told him the whole story, from Soho to here. But, at least, I realized then what was holding me back. He reminded me of someone I once knew: Rocco. Rocco was a big, floppy-eared hound, always happy, bouncing about and slavering over life with such high spirits that some found it annoying, and he was very single-minded. I called to him one day on the street and he just dashed across, not even paying puppy-attention to his surroundings. Got run over by a cart. I rushed to his side, and damned if he still didn't seem happy to see me in those final minutes. If I'd kept my muzzle shut he could have stayed happy a lot longer. Now… . Well, Larry wasn't stupid like Rocco, but he had a similar capacity for enthusiasm, long frustrated by a big problem, in his case. He seemed on the way to working out some means for dealing with the problem now, and the Great Detective in the guise he had assumed was cheering him up a good deal. Since I didn't really see him as giving much away, I thought of Rocco and said the hell with it. Later.
We climbed down then and headed back, and I let him tell me about tropical plants and temperate plants and arctic plants and diurnal-nocturnal plant cycles and herbal medicines from many cultures. When we neared Rastov's place, I saw at first what appeared a piece of rope hanging from a tree limb, blowing in the wind. A moment later I realized it to be Quicklime, signaling for my attention.
I veered to the left hand side of the road, quickening my pace.